Collaboration software is an increasingly popular tool that enables computer users to interact in real-time using their computers. Some common features of collaboration software include the ability for users to maintain contact lists of other users with whom they collaborate, as well as a mechanism for managing the “awareness” of contact list owners by informing contact list owners of changes in the status of their contact list members, such as their availability, accessible devices, mood, activities, and other personal attributes. Contact status information is typically provided to collaboration software users in the form of notifications sent by an awareness server that keeps track of the status of contact list members. When a status change occurs for a contact list member, a notification of the change in status is sent to the owner of the contact list.
In typical collaboration software configurations, notifications of status changes are sent regarding all members of a client's contact list. As a contact list grows, more and more status notifications are sent, causing an increased load on the awareness server. One way to reduce this load is to limit the size of a user's contact list, such as by having the user delete members from, or refrain from adding new members to the contact list. However, this may cause important contact information to be lost, and may restrict future collaboration opportunities, thus reducing the utility of collaboration software.